🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <slrn4ljapj.ar.gjohnson@dream.season.com>,
Reality is a point of view <gjohnson@dream.season.com> wrote:
>
>I have a fuzzy memory of cripple tactics like the above being
>illegal.  But it might have been specific to consultants and
>time bombs (used to ensure a clients timely accounts payable).

So many people implement schemes to try to "enforce" licence agreements,
that it would surprise me if it were illegal.

I'd rather there were no licence managers, and that vendors trusted
their paying customers.

On the other hand, the licence managers do play one important role, 
that is, tracking of licence usage. In that sense they help a company 
keep track of what licenses it is using, and avoid the situation 
where a company inadvertently is pirating software, because they only 
have a certain number of licenses for a certain feature, and they 
have exceeded it. 

So, what I'd really like is the best of both worlds. A licence 
tracking scheme that would allow the users to continue to use the 
application if too many licenses were being used, but one that would 
notify me of the situation so that the appropriate corrective action 
can take place. In the case of too many users, either we buy more 
licenses or ensure that their are fewer users.

The essential problem with most licence managers is that their 
default, if they can't verify that there is a valid licence available 
for the application in question, is to deny someone access to the 
application. Better, let the user run the application and notify the 
user and/or the systems administrator that there is a problem with 
the licensing. 

Licence tracking without denial of service in the case of licensing 
problems would provide a service both to the vendor and the customer. 

-- 
Mark Henderson -- markh@wimsey.bc.ca, henderso@netcom.com (personal accounts)
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